Following on from Randy Seaver’s 8 August Saturday Night Genealogy Fun where he asked people to list their 16 great grandparents [sic] (it should be great great grandparents), and figure out what percentage of each ethnicity/nationality they are, I thought of a twist on this that I’ll suggest he offer next week (since far more people read his Musings than read my Ramblings).

The proposition is to figure out the percentage of your nationality/ethnicity you are at each generation back starting with yourself, with the aim of identifying at what generation you became 100% of the nationality that you identify with today.

[1] – I haven’t tracked down Peter Mulvey’s parents yet, but in the 1841 and 1851 Census for Haddingtonshire where Peter was born, a large number of the Mulveys listed indicate born in Ireland.

[2] The births of Thomas Jennings and Ann Burgoigne have not been actively searched for yet.

So how many generations of this can you complete for your family, and how far back can you go and still be 100% of the nationality you identify with today? For me it’s 4 grandparents all born in New Zealand. Their parents were born in New Zealand, Australia, England and Scotland.

don’t know of any others born outside US in other lines for 3 generations – Danes are still in Denmark (have them traced back many generations) – assume Welsh are still in Wales, so mix remains the same – then add one (maybe two) Irish – next generation add two German – then another generation before adding Swiss, Dutch, and a bunch of English! Still have a few unknowns to plug in, but expect to find them from the same places in about the same generations – but know they are not closer than the Irish generation.

It’s too late to do the math, but I know I’m a “mutt” – but that’s OK these days, right?